363/365 – people to thank who have had an impact on me. Wow, only 3 more gratitude posts left including this one!! When I started this journey a year ago, I was a little nervous as to if I would have 365 people to thank. I didn’t want it to come down to posts such as thanking my mailman for the flyers he delivers in that they were the ones that led me on to some awesome deal!! ; ) Early on in these posts, I started hearing from friends that so and so had made “the list”. I didn’t understand what that was until I was told that it was my “gratitude list”. That put some pressure on me to say the least as there was now a “list”. I didn’t want it to be a list and I didn’t want it to be some type of contest. Then I heard that some people mentioned they were in the 80s and others were in the 200s! I do have to make it clear that I haven’t had an order as to who I thank and thus whatever number gratitude post it was has no relation to ranking. Most posts are the night before or a couple of days before. Yes, I saved my dad for his birthday as I did with my children for theirs, my mom was first because well she is my mom but save for them and the final two gratitude posts, no one had a day or a number. The list by the end of Sunday is far from complete. I could thank another 365 people who got me to where I am today and this is what today’s gratitude post is about – to all of the people I didn’t name and there are hundreds of you that have impacted me! So many former students, co-workers past and present, family members, inlaws, bosses, professors, fellow students, random strangers, neighbours past and present, friends, backhanded gratitudees (bullies and the like), service providers, celebrities etc, etc – just so many people who have made me who I am and to all of you un-named in this past year, you are part of this gratitude journey just because you were not personally mentioned here doesn’t mean you weren’t recognized by me. To all the new people that will come in to my life, thanking you in advance as some of you will change and influence me in new ways. Thank you to all of you who came along with me on this 365 day journey as well. Your encouragement and support has gotten me to this end point.

359/365 – people to thank who have had an impact on me. This post was never supposed to happen. I rarely play tablet/phone games except for Trivia Crack and Songplay. They are fine. They have not consumed my life. I didn’t get the intrigue of any type of gaming apps until last week. I downloaded Pokemon Go. Actually, I didn’t. We didn’t have it here in Canada. I just put a random query as to how to get it and my grade 12 graduate of this year, Sam, sent me the link. I got on and I got hooked. I have never connected with random strangers in person as I have with this app. First of all, I actually want to go and walk my dog. Before this, I would hope that my children or my wife had walked him. In the last week, I have taken him – and sometimes on two walks!! I have gone up to places and when I realized that there were teenagers there Pokemon-ing, I pretended to text while in fact I’m catching one! Today was surreal. I was at elementary preschool and the little kids figured out very quickly what I was doing while waiting to let them into the school. I had a swarm around me giving me advice and what to do and what not to do. The instant connection. I have seen them for the last two weeks but this Pokemon Go phenomenon just brought me down to a relatable level for them. Then, this afternoon, I am walking through Steveston Park (with my dog Shadow) and a few teenagers are on a bench. As I approach them cell phone in hand, they immediately ask – “Pokemon Go?!” and I look up and smile and a conversation happens. This would never have happened if not for this game. I would just have passed them and they wouldn’t ever have acknowledged me but here it is – generations connecting. Plus, as alluded to earlier, I want to be out and about. On the weekend, sitting with a friend beering and I am Pokemoning and the server is all enthralled and I keep her updated as to how many Pokemons I have caught (13 in a 90 minute stint at that table!!!). Yes, this gratitude post was never on my horizon but in one week, I am sparking conversations with random strangers of all ages (okay, all ages below mine) as are they with me. Thank you Pokemon Go creators for a game that allows me to be active and interactive inter-generationally with others at my age of almost 51!

323/365 – people to thank who have had an impact on me. This gratitude post is a strange one for me in that I am different than most people from my age group when it comes to the online world. I have been connected to cyberspace well before it became mainstream. I was on ICQ, the way, way old version of messenger. I was on a bunch of forums. I followed rooms (the earlier precursors of blogs) before they became de rigeur. I followed an online music forum and became “friends” with people from all over the world and ended up becoming a moderator for the website – over a decade ago. We had a community. Almost 2000 followers. I spent countless hours in front of the computer moderating various threads on music. Jenna, Liam, Brett and myself were the admin. We were approving who got into our music sharing forum. It was the new era of the internet. It was slightly bizarre for me. I didn’t really believe in online friends but here I was with online friends! People that I had never met in my life. It became surreal when I received Christmas cards in the mail from them! Today, no one blinks an eye in that one has “friends” in cyber world but I still am surprised that I, a guy who is in the here and now world, got caught up in the virtual world. I guess I am slightly embarrassed as for a while, I spent a lot of time with my “online” friends than I did with the real world. Today, I’m all about the real world and the online world is where I do this – blog my gratitude. However, I can not totally dismiss the online friends and life I had a decade or so ago because if not for them, I would not be expressing myself and using cyberspace as a valuable tool to let everyone know about how grateful I have been and I am for all the people who have come in and out of my life to make me the man I am today. Thank you cyberfriends for giving me a perspective and insight into cyberworld as a medium for expression and for being!